Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
I had the opposite philosophy. It took ten times more work to keep a position than to attain it. You had to sleep with one eye open. Look over your shoulder twice because once wasn’t enough. Even the men who were closest to me had men tailing them because I trusted no one.
Octavio spoke again. “We got ’em. But we gotta move fast because I’m sure Bolton will have a backup plan.”
I hopped out of the back seat and approached the restaurant at the corner, not waiting for my men to catch up. The plan was for me to go into the restaurant by myself and confront him alone rather than cause panic among innocent people whose only crime was not wanting to cook that night.
I passed the windows and saw people dining at their tables. When I opened the glass door, I was met with the loud noises of conversations and knives scraping against plates. Uproarious laughter exploded from one corner of the restaurant, while another table sang happy birthday over a small cake lit with candles.
I already knew where he was seated, so I headed to the rear of the restaurant.
None of the waiters tried to intervene, probably because I looked like I knew exactly where I was going.
I spotted Bolton, his eyes locked on the man across from him, nodding slowly like he gave a fuck about what the guy was saying. He looked even more arrogant than I remembered, his arm draped over the chair of a beautiful woman at his side. Their table was full of bottles of wine and glasses, like they’d started to drink hard before their food arrived.
My core suddenly tightened, and dread spiked in my blood out of nowhere.
My eyes traveled back to where they’d already been—and I stared at her.
Astrid.
Her makeup was done differently, so I didn’t recognize her right away. She wore a black dress with gold jewelry, her hair combed back in a way I’d never seen her wear it. The one thing that hadn’t changed was her eyes.
They were dead.
I stopped walking, right next to a table with a couple enjoying their dinner. They both glanced at me but didn’t ask me to move.
My eyes remained on Astrid, seeing the same broken woman in the gallery, staring at a painting as her eyes started to shine with unshed tears. “Fuck.”
I had a split second to decide what to do. To walk over there and grab Bolton by the neck…or leave before either one of them noticed me. Despite the problems they were having, Astrid wouldn’t want him dead. And she wouldn’t want me if I was the one who killed him.
That left me with only one choice.
I walked out.
I checked in with the butler then waited for Axel in the study. My men were confused by the sudden way I’d changed my mind, but I didn’t owe them an explanation, so I didn’t give one. Bolton would realize someone had killed all his men, and the fact that he was spared would be the greatest mystery he would never solve. Any witness he could ask had been killed.
Axel joined me a moment later in just his sweatpants, his hair messy and his eyes tired like he’d been dead asleep when his butler woke him. “What is it, Theo?” He came up to me, the concern coming from his sleepy gaze.
“I found out who Astrid’s husband is.”
“Shit,” he said. “Did he come at you?”
“No. I came at him.”
His eyebrows rose when the story made less sense.
“I walked into the restaurant to confront Bolton, and Astrid was with him.” I stepped away and sauntered toward the cold fireplace, feeling the tension in my neck because my life had become complicated.
Axel took a moment to process that before he dropped onto the couch, his hands together as his elbows rested on his knees. “Jesus.”
I turned back toward him, the adrenaline still in my veins all these hours later.
“What are the odds of that?”
I fell into the armchair.
“What did you do?”
“I left.”
“Didn’t you kill all of his men?”
“Yes.”
“Then what’s he going to think when he realizes someone killed all of his men but spared him?”
“I don’t fucking know, Axel.” He might be able to follow the clues that led back to me, but since we were already enemies at war, it didn’t make much of a difference.
“You’re fucked, you know that?”
“We already want to kill each other, Axel. It doesn’t change anything.”
“But if he knows it was you and you chickened out, he’s going to wonder why.”
“Let him wonder,” I said coldly.
“He’s a smart guy,” Axel said. “He knows his wife is sleeping with other people—”
“I don’t know if he knows.”
“He’s got to assume his wife has fucked someone at some point in the last six weeks. And even if he doesn’t, he’ll figure it out eventually. Once he does, he’ll piece it together. That you walked in there to kill him but saw Astrid and changed everything.”